Miss Marbar handed Emma over to a burly, brutal-looking black eunuch, wearing an Arab
style robe and a grey felt fez-like cap.
Emma was sobbing with despair. Under her all-enveloping black burkah, with just a
little lace grille for her to see through, she was stark naked. For once even her chastity
belt had been taken off.
She could not believe that she was really now actually being lent by Ursula to the
cruel-looking Caid, for whom she had danced the previous night. She really was being
handed over to him for his sexual use. It was all too awful.
She was even more shocked when she saw Miss Marbar also handing over to the black
eunuch a little book which she recognised as the one started by Miss Perkins and
subsequently kept up to date by Rafaela in London and by the Dragon here in North Africa.
It recorded her monthly cycle, her natural functions, her weight and measurements and
every occasion on which she had been allowed to reach a climax. She had even had to give
Rafaela details of every time she had climaxed with Henry. Now this awful black eunuch was
going to keep it up to date. It was really all too shame-making.
The eunuch pushed her roughly into a large car with tinted windows. She looked
around to wave goodbye to Ursula, but Ursula had decided that it would be too painful to
witness Emma's departure.
Emma was surprised to find another shrouded figure in the back of the car, also
being held by a black eunuch. She wondered if this was another girl destined for the
Caid's harem. She saw that the woman's hands, all that she could see of her, were black.
Perhaps, she thought, the Caid liked women of all colours. She saw that the woman's shroud
had been covered with a hood that even covered the lace grille in front of the woman's
eyes.
The car drove off. The eunuchs exchanged comments in Arabic. Emma was sure that they
were talking about her. She tried to say something but clearly neither spoke any English.
She wondered if the Caid did either. He had been speaking to Ursula in French, a language
of which she still had only a rudimentary knowledge. Perhaps, she thought, the Master of a
harem did not bother to actually speak to his girls.
Emma remembered being told that traditionally Moorish girls, although often very
pretty, were often also virtually uneducated and even illiterate - and deliberately kept
like that lest, by having other interests in life, they might revolt against merely
existing to please and obey their masters.
Women, Emma knew, were not companions to men in the Moslem world. They were there
merely for a man's pleasure and to bear his children. Presumably a common language was not
considered important.
Her thoughts were interrupted as they drove out through the gates of Ursula's villa
by a hood being pulled down over her head. Now, like the black girl, she could see
nothing. She tried to pull the hood off but her wrists were seized and handcuffed behind
her back. She felt utterly helpless. It was very frightening.
Here she was, a respectable married English woman, being driven through the streets
of a modern town to be put, against her will, into the harem of a terrifying looking Arab
Caid whom she had only seen once and with whom she had no common language.
She wondered if the European tourists who saw the car passing would have the
slightest inkling of the drama taking place under their very eyes. The veneer of Western
civilisation was very thin in this still very traditional Moslem country.
At last, after what seemed to be a long journey, the car stopped. Still hooded and
handcuffed, she was dragged out and pushed into some sort of building.
She heard a rustling sound. She guessed that the black girl's hood was being
removed. A few minutes later she heard a grinding noise as if something was being engraved
in metal. Then she heard a repeated hammering noise. She also heard the noise of a girl
sobbing. What were they doing to the black girl, she wondered with a shiver? What were
they going to do to her? Even in these modern days, she knew, a Caid had almost limitless
powers to do what he liked to his women.
Emma heard the high pitched voices of the eunuchs and she could also hear a deeper
pitched voice. She could not understand a word of what was being said. There was a sharp
cry, apparently from the black girl, followed by more talk and laughter. The eunuchs
sounded pleased with whatever had been done to the girl.
The distressed girl was led away and there was a distant clang as if a metal door
had been closed. Emma could no longer hear the black girl's sobs and became quite
terrified again.
She felt herself being led forward. The black shroud was slipped back over her head,
under the hood and raised slightly to bare her neck. She could still see nothing.
There was an iron post by her side. Something cold and metallic was put round her
neck and moved around as if to check that it fitted properly. She heard the same grinding
noise as if metal was being carefully engraved. Then the collar, or whatever it was, was
fastened round her neck again. A piece of metal plate was inserted between her skin and
the metal collar round her neck. It held her tightly up against the post.
Then Emma felt a man's hands on the side of her neck. It was in fact a Negro
blacksmith inserting a rivet into the matching holes at either ends of a hinged metal
collar. She felt a series of hammer blows on the side as the rivet was hammered flat. The
steel plate protected her from the full force of the hammering, of course, but even so it
was a nerve-racking experience, especially as she could not see what was happening. It was
repeated three times as three separate rivets were inserted into the matching ends of the
collar and hammered flat.
The burly blacksmith stood back to admire his work. It would not be easy to remove
the collar. He was used to wealthy Arabs still having their women permanently collared,
even in this day and age - it had, after all, been customary for centuries. So he was not
particularly surprised to be riveting a collar round a European woman's neck.
He had suggested a heavy brass collar, saying that its golden colour would match the
girl's hair. However the eunuchs said that they had orders to make sure that she was
fitted with a simple black iron collar, similar to those of his other concubines. He had
made sure that it was sufficiently wide to make the girl keep her chin up well and that
the rounded edges would prevent her from rubbing her skin on it.
He reached forward and moved it slowly round her neck. Normally she would wear it
with the hinge and the riveted end on opposite sides, so that the two strong rings
attached to it hung down the front and back. Alternatively, with the collar slightly
turned, the rings could be on either side. This would enable girls to be chained side by
side in the Caid's bed. The Caid, the blacksmith knew, was a demanding man when it came to
his pleasure.
The blacksmith examined the Caid's crest engraved on one side of the front ring with
the Caid's name in Arabic on the other side. These would not only ensure that the girl
would be returned quickly to the Caid should she ever try to escape, but also played an
important psychological role in making the girl feel that she was nothing but property.
Satisfied with the engravings, he examined the rivets. Yes, it would take careful work
with a special riming tool to remove them to enable the collar to be taken off.
It was time to fit the matching iron manacles to the girl's wrists. He measured her
slender wrists and produced a pair of manacles joined by a two foot length of light steel
chain. Each of the manacles was several inches wide and, like the collar, was hinged and
would need three rivets to close them permanently.
The Caid insisted on his concubines being kept lightly chained and manacled. It was
something that had been traditional in his family for generations and he saw no reason to
change it now. The two foot length of chain allowed a girl to use her hands almost
normally, but it also had a strong psychological effect on her, making her feel the Caid's
helpless possession – and in making her realise the hopelessness of trying to escape. But,
of course, the blacksmith laughed to himself, it was also simply for the Caid's own
greater erotic excitement.
Emma felt the handcuffs being removed from her wrists. Then first one and then the
other was held by the post, a metal strip inserted to prevent her bones from being broken
by the hammer and then each manacle was closed tightly round each wrist by three rivets.
She heard the clink of the chains as her second wrist was manacled. Horrified she realised
that she was now permanently chained.
Again the blacksmith smiled as he checked his handiwork. Looking at the helpless
creature, he could certainly understand why the Caid found the sight of a chained young
woman so arousing. Doubtless, he thought, the Caid also found the rattle in his bed also
highly stimulating.
The blacksmith also checked the enlarged 'purity' link in the middle of the chain.
This was designed to allow the Caid's eunuchs to padlock the centre of the chain to the
ring on the front of a girl's collar at night or during the harem afternoon siesta. The
girl could then just about reach down to touch her nipples, it was true, but no lower. She
was forced to keep herself pure for her Master and was prevented from secretly indulging
in what the Caid and his black eunuchs would regard as wanton unfaithfulness.
It was also the normal harem way of ensuring that even the most reluctant girl was
driven by frustration into becoming positively eager for the embrace of her, perhaps
hated, Master. He wondered how long it would be before this proud European woman would be
panting for the Caid's touch.
The ring at the back of the collar was often used for padlocking, in a similar way,
a girl's wrist chain behind her neck. This was the usual procedure for the first few
occasions when a girl was summoned to the Caid's bed, especially if she had not entered
the harem voluntarily, if she had been kidnapped or was the wife of a man who had tried to
rebel against the Caid. It made sure that the girl was completely helpless and unable to
harm him. Doubtless, it would not be long before this white woman found herself with her
wrists chained behind her neck as she lay in the Caid's bed, awaiting his arrival.
The blacksmith now turned his attention to fitting Emma with a large brass nose
ring. These were fashionable amongst rich harem owners who found that, like manacles, they
had a powerful psychological effect on their women, at a time when otherwise they might
get carried away by the ideas of Women's Rights that were now being imported from the
West.
He fastened little clips onto each of the girl's nostrils and asked the eunuchs to
pull them up, whilst keeping the girl's hood down as far as possible so that she would not
see what was being done. With one hand he removed a red hot needle from a little brazier
and with the other he held her nostril steady.
There was a scream as he drove the needle through the septum of Emma's nose. The
pain was over in a few seconds, but then she felt something being threaded through the
skin. Whatever it was, it seemed to be supporting something large and quite heavy. She
could feel it touching her face and chin. There was more heat near her face, spreading to
the thing in her nose. Moments later, she heard the horrible Negroes laughing as they
touched her nose.
The hood was removed from her head and the shroud pulled back. Her wrists were still
locked by the chain to the ring at the back of her collar. The eunuchs laughingly pointed
to a mirror.
Emma gave a gasp of horror. Hanging from her nose was a large brass ring that
circled her mouth and came down to the point of her chin. It reminded her of the big rings
she had seen in the noses of pigs and bulls. It made her look like an animal – and feel
like one as well.
Then she saw the chain and wrist manacles and the wide iron collar riveted round her
neck, the big ring on the front of the collar, the Caid's crest and Arabic writing. They
made her feel even more like an animal. She thought of the unfortunate girls who had
joined her under Ursula's lunch table and whose heads had been shaven on the orders of
their cruel Mistresses. They had lost their human look. So too, she felt, with her collar,
her chained manacles and above all her nose ring, she had almost lost hers.
The worst part about it, she saw, was that just as the collar and manacles had been
permanently closed with rivets, so the ends of the nose ring had been permanently brazed
together.
At least, she thought, as she gazed in horror into the mirror, the part of the ring
that actually went through her nose was much smaller in diameter than the thick ring that
hung down to her chin.
Once again the blacksmith stood back and looked at his handiwork. It was perfect.
The Caid would be pleased and give him a large present. The Caid insisted on all his
concubines being ringed in this way. It not only excited him, but also played a
significant role in keeping his women docile and submissive. Even the mothers of the
Caid's sons were made to wear the degrading nose rings. Only the Caid’s wives were excused
this humiliation.
Indeed, the Caid particularly enjoyed having his black eunuchs show an aggrieved
husband or father the sight of his precious wife or daughter, now wearing his nose ring,
collar and manacles as a sign of her new status. He enjoyed it even more if the woman had
been covered by one of his black guards, when his black eunuchs proudly drew aside her
robe to disclose a well curved belly to the humiliated man.
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